Yes, in the Pacific Northwest, where the minimum wage was already quite high, compared to the federal minimum wage. IIRC, the standard of living in Seattle is astronomical compared to Houston or some podunk town in the middle of nowhere.
Trickle down theory. Faux claims to be concerned about "poors" as you insultingly call them when not trying to seem like you give a damn. The wheel is turning. The vast majority of Americans are seeing through the claims of the one percent and those who believe in your "contentions" i.e spin. Now if we could have a democracy, not purge the voter's rolls and treat money from the corporate rich as "speech" we could help these folks out.
I was basing my calculations on 5% a year, I would prefer indexing to inflation in order to take politicians out of the equation entirely, but they are unlikely to give up the political football anytime soon.
You didn't give me evidence of anything of the like. There isn't any kind of widespread movement to more than double the minimum wage, the "evidence" you provided was from a single locality which decided to raise the minimum on their own, having already exceeded the federal minimum wage long ago.
Here's what you said before: Are you saying that an article about a city implementing a $15/hr minimum wage starting 1/1/14 is not evidence of people seriously asking to increase the minimum wage to $15 overnight? Now you're asking for a "widespread movement"? You seem to have the bad habit of moving the goalposts of your argument during your argument.
And you have a bad habit of picking nits and using "evidence" which is cherry picked and doesn't represent the wider reality that the rest of us are talking about. This entire thread is about the federal minimum wage for f*** sake, a single city in the entire country increasing the minimum wage to $15, WHEN THEIR MINIMUM WAGE WAS ALREADY 33% ABOVE THE FEDERAL MINIMUM isn't exactly a representative example, n'est pas?
how do you think businesses react to having to pay a large portion of their employees double? a 'poor person' is not the proper nomenclature for someone who doesn't have alot of money? hahahaha. good greif............ Actually you are insulting the poor by assuming that word is an insult. Why would you think less of someone who had little money? go ahead. Nobody is stopping California or any state from raising their minimum wage to 'help' the poor? go to town.
I gave you exactly what you asked for. It's not my fault that your request was shortsighted. I guess I have a bad habit of not being able to read your mind....kind of like when you set a goal of $20 in order to "double" minimum wage. Once again, here's what you said: So basically, you acknowledged that there were recent protests where the minimum wage was already $10. But despite that, you still didn't see any evidence that these people wanted to increase it to $15 overnight. I provided you the evidence. And now it's irrelevant b/c the thread is about the federal minimum wage, not a single city? Once again, forgive me for providing you the exact information you requested.
Have you ever been to Seattle? Prices aren't that much higher, except for real estate. There is he beginning of a movement to increase the wage to $15/hr around the country. The wage will be raised, certainly not to $15/hr immediately in most areas of the country. BTW the movement for the 40 hr week and all other advances for the most workers started in a similar fashion. ********* From fast-food strikes to efforts to raise minimum wage, low wage ... www.cleveland.com/business/.../from_fast-food_strikes_to_camp.html Nov 9, 2013 - From fast-food strikes to efforts to raise minimum wage, low wage workers' movement appears on the rise ... workers across the country, in which they demanded to be paid $15 an hour, have garnered much attention. Debating the effects of a $15 fast food wage - CNBC.com www.cnbc.com/id/101250114 Dec 5, 2013 - (Read more: $15 minimum wage means layoffs: White Castle exec) ... But even experts who support some increase worry that a raise to $15 ... For the movement's strategists, the big question is how to achieve their $15 goal.
Another thing interesting is that I doubt there is virtually anyone on here who runs a small business that pays their worker's minimum wage. Yet the think tank funded by the .01% spin makes so many identify with and bleed tears for that very small slice of society that does. Also interesting to see folks thinking that that McDonald's,Wendy's and the like are small mom and pop operations.
Interesting article by Krugman on the topic of inequality. I'm posting this here and the Inequality thread.
Exactly. Real estate is crazy expensive in Seattle. Everything else? Not so much. A tremendous amount of goods are shipped into this country through the port of Seattle, so the transportation costs to Seattle are minimal. As for things like seafood and produce, there is a lot of local production. Family owned fisheries and farms flourish in that area. That helps keep costs low. In addition, there no state income taxes, so there is no additional cost of living compared to Texas on that front. The sales tax rate in Seattle is about 8.8%, which is a negligible difference from Houston. If you take out real estate, the cost of living in Seattle is comparable to Houston.
Krugman the pundit vs Krugman the economist http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-powell/krugman-minimum-wage_b_4428174.html
Like most whose only aim is to somehow "win" an internet argument, you provide information the context of which is all wrong. Have fun parsing and dissecting words to try and make a point, I made mine: the minimum wage is too low, should be indexed to inflation, and should continually rise in order that ALL wages continue to rise. This kind of action is unlikely to in increase unemployment rates and will only cause a very small rise in prices, based on the data.
You're drawing incorrect conclusions from the data. Do you honestly think that businesses will react the same way to minimum wage increases each and every time in perpetuity? Regarding automation, you said this earlier: This statement is incorrect b/c it doesn't consider how costs are impacted by advancements in technology. For instance, how much did blu-ray players cost when they were first released? How much can you buy one for now?
No, but the single best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. As such, looking at the data for what happened in the past shows us the most likely trends into the future. I will fully admit that there will come a day when many low paying jobs can be automated, just as many manufacturing jobs already have been. However, with manufacturing the cost of automation became viable much earlier since manufacturing jobs pay far more than minimum wage. The day will come, but unless you have an incredibly accurate crystal ball, you can't say when that will be. As such, the most accurate estimates would be those which rely on current data, data which clearly show somewhere between very little and no increase in unemployment as a result of increases in the minimum wage.
It sounds like you've never invested in stocks. You don't need a crystal ball to realize that as the cost of labor increases, businesses will look for cheaper alternatives. I'm sure you'll accuse me of nitpicking again, but it's hard to respond when your statements are so vague. A 15 cent increase to minimum wage won't affect unemployment. An $8 increase probably will.
The day will come, but I don't see losing the low-wage job as a much worse problem than having the low-wage job. At least when you lay people off, the problem is out in the open and well-defined and you can approach it with public policy solutions. If a person is fully employed but can't earn enough, they may as well be unemployed. But their status is hidden and its harder to solve via public policy. Raise the minimum wage, eliminate the low-value jobs from the economy, and then find some better solution for the people who don't have the skillset to create value in the economy. Underpaying people to avoid the capital costs of putting in a machine that can do the same job isn't a good long-term solution.
ROFL, you don't base your analysis of stocks at least partly on past performance? No, you can just look at the data which shows that they don't lay people off. They will certainly look for cheaper alternatives, but it is unlikely that they will find cheaper than minimum wage. If cheaper were out there, minimum wage workers would be laid off en masse, which hasn't happened, at least not yet. And any increase that I would implement would be incremental (which I have very clearly stated a number of times in this very thread). An overnight $8 increase would be stupid, from the perspective of someone who understands economics.
